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Several Hanukiot, Hanukkah minoras, flicker for the first night of Hanukkah on Tuesday. The Festival of Lights commemorates the second century Maccabean Revolt and the rededication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem.

Juley Harvey

Estes Valley Chamber Singers rehearse at the YMCA for the annual Olde English Feast.

Juley Harvey

Firesides, friendships and feasting are festive this time of year.

Walt Hester

Maya Mitchner lights a menorah with Alice Schwartz, both of Estes Park, before starting Hannukah festivities last year. The Festival of Lights celebrates the rededication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem at the time of the Maccabean revolt against King Antiochus IV Epiphanes in about 165 Before the Common Era (BCE).

Whether it’s spoon-licking, tree-decorating, present-buying, party-going, Grinch-watching, music-making, parading, footballing or all-around favorite thing-ing, everybody seems to celebrate some sort of tradition this time of year. Maybe we’re just glad/hopeful to get the whole thing over with and something new and ever-hopeful beginning? We would be sadly bereft (although maybe more sane) without these expected observations of the special nature of what is believed to have happened — from a partridge in a pear tree to a vial of oil.

My family is crazily baking enough to feed a small enclave in Cucamonga, because that’s what we do, and Mom doesn’t want me to be “disappointed.” You can take the Santa out of the girl, but the magic and light of the season remains. “I never eat fruitcake because it has rum, and one little bite turns a man to a bum,” indeed! Give me those bourbon balls, full speed ahead!

We remember our favorite things, and by golly, for a time, we don’t feel so bad. There is a sufficiency to feel bad about the whole rest of the year. Santa is slayed enough. This one window of celebratory time now serves a slice of — well — fruitcake or latkes, Christmas or Hanukkah, take your pick — or observe all of the above. Some people decorate a “Hanukkah bush.” Others would like to have 12 days of Christmas. There is an art to happiness now. The Buddhists believe it lies in a peaceful mind, and peace flows in concentric circles outward.

The foodists believe one more cookie is always better and leads to peaceful dreams of sugar plums dancing. Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof” sang of “Tradition, tradition! Tradition! Tradition, tradition! Tradition! Who, day and night, must scramble for a living, Feed a wife and children, Say his daily prayers? And who has the right, as master of the house, To have the final word at home? The Papa, the Papa! Tradition. The Papa, the Papa! Tradition.”

And so, honoring the great was and the here is, we gather at this time of year, to renew our roots and warm our hearts. We put ridiculous baubles on in-house trees, feast to the idea of miracles occurring and give thanks for higher ideas than those of politicians.

As a college student, I attended my first madrigal dinner at Christmastime at Indiana University. IU was kind of a poster child for Midwest winter — white, white buildings, draped with humongous white wreaths with red bows, snow, white fountain of ice. Enchanted with the musical-feast idea, I next attended a madrigal dinner at Yosemite — talk about your jewellike setting! — that became so popular a lottery was required.

This year finally brought me to the eighth annual Olde English Christmas Feast at the YMCA of the Rockies. Food abounded — indeed, even before I entered the hall, I heard rumors — “You can tell the novices. They fill up on the appetizers.” Yes, I was wishing for ye olde doggie bag by the time the two-hour, seven-course feast, replete with skits and songs, waddled its way into the Wassail bowl of the West.

The Estes Valley Chamber Singers, under the expert kilt and baton of director J. Richard Dixon, filled two sold-out feasts and added a third night filled with good music, great fun and wonderful food.

The close harmonic sounds of the Estes Valley Chamber Singers — a rendition of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” from the point of view of the lady receiving all these unwanted presents — yes, what hostess couldn’t use nine lords a leaping, for instance — provided a great backdrop in front of which to tear apart a rack of wild boar. A handbell ensemble from the Presbyterian Community Church of the Rockies (PCCR) helped ring in the meal.

You can say what you will about King Henry the VIII and his ilk, but they knew how to party — if you don’t mind losing your head, every now and then. And they wore appropriately billowy clothes — no skinny jeans for them! The Y’s feast was suitably boisterous (with guests told to bang their silverware — preferably food-free, to show their approval and “Boos” were also solicited, improperly or not). The “Shouldn’t Be Ready For Prime Time Players” earned their moniker. And the food just kept on a-comin’.

First, there was the wassail processional, with the “Wassail Song,” followed by the toast, to the “Boar’s Head Carol” and a medley from the PCCR Bell Quartet. Diners were repeatedly warned not to peek at their covered dishes (especially apropos when the “Peking Duck” course was served — everybody’s a court jester, it turns out). Next came the appetizer of potato leek soup in a fresh-baked bread bowl (that would be quite enough in some establishments. But wait, there’s more!). This was accompanied by the carols “People Look East” and “Away in a Manger.”

Next, the salad, with raspberry walnut vinaigrette dressing, to the tune of “On Christmas Night” and a skit. I was so glad there were implements — fearing a knuckle sandwiche, for sure, had I tried to eat without silverware.

The main courses included cedar plank salmon (as a novice, I thought it was a hugely thick slice of salmon, at first, with an oddly hollow sound to it) with roasted red pepper sauce, saffron rice and asparagus; roasted orange glaze duck with fig dressing and root vegetables and “Come Join the Caroling”; rack of wild boar with sweet potatoes with smoked gouda and rosemary and “Little Drummer Boy” and “O Little Town of Estes Park”; and dessert (otherwise known as what the royal bakers woke up feeling like) of plum pudding with a hard sauce, and “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” featuring Hannah Huelsing, “I Saw Three Ships,” “In Dulci Jubilo,” “The Holly and the Ivy,” “I’ll Be Home for Christmas/Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas;” then an audience sing-a-long of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Silver Bells” and “White Christmas” — Hollywood is already calling — miracles, indeed.

Perhaps, along with life’s simple things and creatures, the birds and beasts of the field and little puppydogs everywhere, the best we can wish for is a home in someone’s heart for the holidays. Talk about your comfort and joy — a sleigh ride, waiting to happen, a package of waggery and wassail, saying with every breath, “I love you.” If that’s not the spirit of the season, what is.

Oh, and a partridge in a pear tree. And, as John Lennon wrote in “Happy Christmas, “War is over, If you want it, War is over now.”